Seven people have been arrested for allegedly exploiting migrant harvest workers, including an under age child, in Bordeaux. Several dozen harvest workers, including a 14-year-old child, are reported to have been trafficked into France from Romania to help with this year’s Bordeaux harvest. According to French news agency AFP, the Libourne (Gironde) public prosecutor’s office has charged seven people in Bordeaux with “organized gang trafficking of human beings”, as well as “concealing a crime” and “subjecting vulnerable people to unacceptable conditions of work and accommodation”. Those arrested on Tuesday 10 October were from three different communes, including Saint-Émilion, where many of the region’s finest wines are made. In 2020, six people and three companies went on trial accused of exploiting migrant workers picking grapes for the Champagne region. Sub-contractors has been tasked “by some of France’s biggest Champagne producers” to find manpower for the harvest, according to a Euro News report. The almost 200 workers involved in the case were housed in “slave-like” conditions, sleeping ten to a room in a “derelict” hotel with no hot water or mattresses. A 26-year-old Afghan national said that workers would begin at 5.30am and finish at around 10.30 pm, with no contract, and were expected to pay €25 a day for their food and sub-standard accommodation. Is it time to stop paying pickers by the kilo? Following the death of four grape pickers in Champagne this year, caused partially by soaring temperatures during harvest, producers are questioning whether a new approach is
This Article was originally published on The Drink Business - Champagne
